You're Going To Have A Really Great Year
by thebluedetective
Summary: Across in her other dimension, Rose suddenly remembers that New Year's Eve a few years ago and the face of the man there.


"_Anyway, Happy New Year."_

"_And you. What year is this?"_

"_Blimey, how much have you had? 2005, January the first." _

"_2005. Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year."_

"OH!" Rose shot up, immediately and suddenly awake, her breath coming in shallow gasps. "Wha…?" the Doctor mumbled, blearily squinting at her, "Rose…what is it?" Rose's breaths continued coming in shallow gasps as the fleeting images passed again and again before her eyes. "Rose?" the Doctor said urgently, awake and alert now, worry flashing across his voice, "Rose? What's wrong?" But she didn't hear him. She couldn't hear him. The words echoed in her brain, getting louder and louder each time, their meaning slowly and painfully sinking in. _2005. Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year._ _2005. Tell you what. I bet you're going to have a really great year._ Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened. The memory had never been there before. Even with the New Year's Eve parties and all the time gone, she hoped she would have remembered that. But it hadn't been there before. It just hadn't. And it wasn't a dream, no it wasn't, she realized. Dreams faded when they were over, breaking apart into a million tiny fragments whisked away in a vortex of darkness. Dreams disappeared into the black hole but memories- even over time- were set in stone. This was no dream. This had happened.

The pictures flashing before her eyes, Rose suddenly realized something else. Pain. He had been in pain. The slightly hunched way he stood, the grimace turned to smile, his thin grunt that had alerted her to his presence. All these were signs of hurt. As much as Rose liked to flatter herself, it certainly wasn't pain of the heart. It was physical pain, a deep instinctual tugging pain. She'd seen a man in pain like this before, that deep instinctual tug, just before he'd…

Rose gasped, tears she hadn't known had been there flowing down her face. The Doctor's eyes widened and he gripped her arm. "Rose, what's wrong? Please, are you hurt? What can I do? What is wrong?" The desperate plea in his voice snapped Rose back to present and she looked at him. Confusion crossed her brow as she wiped away the tears. Finally she mustered breath to speak. "No," she mumbled and the Doctor relaxed his grip, but his searching eyes were still fixed on her own. "It's not me," Rose continued to mumbled, "It's not me. It wasn't…..It wasn't a dream." This time confusion crossed the Doctor's brow and he leaned back slightly, regarding his love with questioning eyes. "…What wasn't a dream?" he asked, brown eyes sparkling. Rose closed her eyes, barely able to look at the pictures dancing across the black of her inner eyes. "It was you," she began, "in 2005. New Year's Eve. Standing there in the snow with your converse and your long brown coat…" The Doctor cut her off there, shaking his head, "No. Couldn't have been, I was different then." Rose took a shuddering breath. "But it was you!" she all but shouted, "Or well, Timelord you, double heart beat and everything." This silenced the Doctor, the metacrisis that under all normal circumstances shouldn't exist. But what was a normal circumstance? Honestly, he'd never know…. Rose continued. "You were standing in the shadows, watching me walk by when all a sudden you made this noise….like…a grunt of….pain. So I turned around an-and asked you if you were alright. Y-you said you were fine, like a bit too much to drink. An' I turn to leave, but you asked me what year it was. So I answered, 2005. January the first." Here Rose paused, unwilling to go on. Here was where the story changed, where the climax and resolution came instantaneously, crashing together like an avalanche upon the slope. "Go on," the Doctor prompted, his voice devoid of emotion, cold and hollow. Rose wondered if he knew what was going to happen like she thought….something in his voice was so….. "And you replied," she spoke quietly and carefully, more for her own sake than his, "That you bet that I-I was going to have a gr-great year." Her tears flowed more easily now and she leaned forward, head in hands.

The old memories flooded back to haunt her as she sat there crying. The dull drudgery of life, her mother's burnt cooking, pitching in for lottery each month without a prayer of hope, snack lunches with Mickey in the square, fold and stack fold and stack then suddenly-

"_I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?"_

"_Rose." _

"_Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!"_

And she'd been running ever since. At last her tears slowed to sniffles and with a mental start, Rose realized she had curled into her Doctor, her face pushed into his chest, shirt wetted by her tears. Slowly she looked up, her red rimmed eyes taking in the face she knew so well. Not the first she'd seen, but the face she couldn't live without. "Do you think…," she mumbled, trying to start, "Do you think….you….?" The Doctor was quiet, but the silence was answer enough. Rose lowered her gaze, a calm settling over her. Two heart beats instead of four. One life instead of millions. Nine hundred years in one mind. Here with her. Stuck. She'd never thought of it that way, Rose realized unsettled. The other had the TARDIS, the whole of time and space at his feet. What was to come, what had come already, and what was a million billion light-years away. Four heart beats instead of two. A million lives instead of one. A mind for a million more years to come. But now he was different. Across dimensions she'd felt it, a single memory across the worlds, through the Howling. Inside he was technically the same. New face, new personality, same morals. Same software, different case. A small smile touched Rose's lips and she slipped her hand into her Doctor's. A small smile in return crossed his own lips and Rose sighed. No matter his face, he'd always be the Doctor. But she still didn't want him to go.


End file.
